Professor Gymama Slaughter received a research award from the National Science Foundation to support her work on a self-powered biosensing microsystem that simultaneously generates bioelectricity and monitors glucose.

The four-year award in the amount of $400,000 is from NSF’s prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which supports junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

With the support from NSF, Professor Slaughter and the students in her Bioelectronics Laboratory will fabricate and characterize a self-powered biosensing microsystem that simultaneously generates bioelectricity and monitors glucose. This will be accomplished using an inertial power scavenging design by converting interstitial glucose into energy through the coupling of enzymes and three-dimensional nanowire arrays to power implantable glucose monitors.

The self-powered biosensing microsystem will monitor sugar levels and embodies two key technical contributions: it eliminates the need for a potentiostat circuit and an external power source or batteries, leading to dramatic improvements in both speed and energy efficiency, and it demonstrates an autonomous, self-powered, low-power biosensing microsystem that can be adapted for other uses. For people suffering from diabetes, continuous, self-powered monitoring of glucose will improve their quality of life and can save lives.

Professor Slaughter notes that the educational component of the project enriches and complements other programs at UMBC designed to increase minority and female participation in STEM fields. The exposure of these students to a real-world problem and its solution will enable them to better appreciate the contribution of scientific research.